James, I have no issues with the heat because they grow inside my house. I never put them outside, even for a couple of minutes. I grow them in a spare room that has a large window that gets early morning sun. I also have them under cheap grow lights that clip onto something that's near the plants. The grow lights take an ordinary grow bulb or you can use those long square grow light bulbs. Either type will work and the total cost is really cheap. Ever since I found out about the water my plants are growing fast. I use only organic fert. since the other types of fert. can burn the roots. The organic can not burn the roots. A guy that I purchase miltoniopsis plants from told me that since most tap water is purified to get rid of bacteria and other things most tap water contains chlorine and chorline burns the delicate roots. I never thought about this before and since I found out about chlorine being in most tap water, this makes sense plus you can smell the faint odor of chlorine in the tap water. I can't tolerate the heat so I stay inside and I set my thermostat at 70 degrees. If I'm happy with the temps. the plants are probably happy too. I almost forgot one important issue. I have a humidifier working 24 hours. It's a real cheap humidifier that I purchased off of Etsy. The humidifier looks like a fat white stick. I stick it in an old plastic water jug and you can see the mist coming out. Apparently it works real well. I can't tell you the brand because it came in a company box and everything is in Chinese including the instructions. I think that the humidifier cost me around five bucks. My set up is cheap but I haven't killed any plants. I currently have about seven plants putting out spikes. I have about twenty plants and I don't want anymore. I'll probably get another one only if the flower color appeals to me or if it's a cross that I don't have.

Based on twelve years of growing teas in East Tennessee (6b), I can report that this is the meanest cold in those years. We had three periods of four or more days when highs were 20F or less. I had visions of ice crystals destroying rose vascular systems. So far, that hasn't happened. What to look for. Don't look down near the base first. Look out on stems. The new buds are just today beginning to swell. By Thursday or Friday (in these parts) the swelling will be more pronounced. We won't keep all our stems, but we will keep some. Look at the roses from the north side as well as the south. South sides are already showing sunburn and many aren't green, even though their north sides are. By Friday (we expect temps around 60F as highs for the rest of this week) we may see more winter damage, not as dead but as canker growing. Today, on a classic poly, I saw the tell tale signs of active canker...not in the canker themselves but in the magenta purple discoloration that the canes take on when the canker is producing polyethylene gasses. On small stems, that has to be cut off. On tea roses, on mature two to four year old canes, the cane can survive (unlike wimpy HTs that allow the canker to gird them by midsummer). Right now I can report that four nights with temps out in the garden that went down to below 5F, some stems survived on both teas and chinas. That makes me very happy.

hmmm.. very strange. In many years as an electrician I have rarely seen a defective GFCI, and never a defective new one. Keep us posted, this may not be the end of the story. That being said, There is a certain brand of GFCIs with a red and a black button sold at a certain store with orange on the front of the building that tend not to be so easy to reset when they get old, sometimes they will reset on the hot side but not the neutral. A good firm push on the test button and another on the reset button using a pencil eraser does the trick.

After 40+ years of infallible service with never a repair from my loyal classic Maytag, I am shopping for a new washer & dryer. I am considering Miele compact Classic W1 and T1 (for its regular 120 electric outlet plug) because all regular sizes have become too large for my small laundry area. Yes, it is an investment to pay $400 more (plus taxes) for each Miele, but I was justifying the solid German quality. But now reading about Miele bearings failing in such a short time (5-7 years) makes me wonder if any brand can assure us of its reliability. I never heard of washer bearings with my classic workhorse Maytag; are these bearings a technology of modern times that has proven problematic for all brands? Of course, the company would encourage you to buy their extended warranty for $320 (after you overpaid $400 for each Classic Miele. I understand the frustrated Miele customers who opt to just buy cheaper brands that they would not be upset replacing every 7 years.